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When I originally wrote the message below, I was going to ban all external links to Wikipedia on this site because they had decided to ban all external links to "fan sites" on Wikipedia. What's fair is fair. I was also going to ask my fellow Ghostbusters webmasters to join me in the ban, since links to their sites were removed too. On October 20, 2006 one of the good Wikipedia members reinstated the links in such a way that, hopefully, they will remain for quite some time. As such, it would seem awfully petty of me to go through with the ban. However, the events that transpired on October 14, 2006 should be noted, not only to be used as an example of this type of behavior, by also so others can learn from it. As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This is one event that I hope doesn't get repeated.

In the wee hours of October 14, 2006 I anonymously made two minor edits to the Ghostbusters II and Extreme Ghostbusters pages at Wikipedia. In the External Links sections of those pages I corrected the title of my own website and a few others, and fixed a few links. A WikiNazi^* by the name of "Mushroom" apparently took offense to my changes, reverted them, and sent me a message. I sent a reply, to which he replied with an apology. Since an apology is an admission of wrong-doing, I went back and reverted the pages to the changes that I made. Mushroom went back and undid my changes again, reverting back to the previous copy. Below are the series of messages that were sent back and forth between us.

MUSHROOM: Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites that you are affiliated with, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policies for further explanations of links that are considered appropriate. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. -- Mushroom (Talk) 08:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC) ME: The link is NOT inappropriate. In fact, it was there for the longest time. I was just correcting the title. MUSHROOM: Sorry about that. -- Mushroom (Talk) 08:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC) [At this point I reverted the pages back to my changes] MUSHROOM: I wrongfully accused you of spamming, and I apologize for that, but my link removals were justified by Wikipedia's external links policy. Unofficial sites are not allowed unless they are reliable sources. -- Mushroom (Talk) 08:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC) ME: Ok, for starters, saying that a site isn't a reliable source is your own personal opinion, and goes against Wikipedia's belief of neutrality. Several of the sites that you deleted are QUITE reliable sources. A few of them have been servicing the online Ghostbusters community for over 10 years. They're not "fly by night" sites. In fact, all of the links that you deleted have been on Wikipedia for years. And the sad thing is that they would still be there if I didn't decide to be a nice guy and fix up a few titles and urls, which as a result, caused the page to be added to the Recent Changes list. So I respectfully request that you revert the pages back to my revisions, so that I don't have to do it myself, and so you can show that you're being unbiased. MUSHROOM: I didn't remove those links because of you, I did it to implement Wikipedia's current policies. Reliable sources are clearly defined, and those sites are not reliable sources, since they are self-published, and they have "not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking" (quote from the policy). The fact that they were on Wikipedia for years doesn't mean anything. What if I find a mistake in an article? Shouldn't I correct it because it's been there for years? It's the same with those links. Unless you prove that those websites are not "created by unknown individuals who have no one checking their work" (another quote), i.e. they are written by notable researchers that meet the guidelines at WP:BIO and are experts in their field, I won't add those links back. -- Mushroom (Talk) 09:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC) ME: Then by your definition of a reliable source, you need to go through the entire Wikipedia website and delete every single link to the Internet Movie Database because that is the most UNreliable source on the entire internet. The fact that you left the IMDb links, and well as an iMockery link, shows that you ARE bias against Ghostbusters websites (perhaps you work for IMDb or iMockery). I guess the fact that many of the long-running Ghostbusters websites have contacts within Sony (the company that owns the Ghostbusters franchise) doesn't prove that they're a reliable source, huh? I guess the fact that the long-running Ghostbusters websites are run by die-hard fans, who know the movie backwards and forwards, means that those individuals are not "experts in their field", huh? (It makes me wonder what you think of the life-long Star Trek fans "Trekkies".) Do you honestly expect me to believe that you would only approve links about Ghostbusters II and Extreme Ghostbusters if they were written by a noted scholar with walls filled with degrees? Come on. This isn't the Theory of Relativity we're taking about. It's just a movie and a tv series, respectively. The fans who create the long-running sites ARE the notable researchers, they ARE the experts. MUSHROOM: I'm not interested in this conversation anymore. It's pretty clear that your only interest is in keeping a link to your website (spookcentral.cjb.net) on Wikipedia. I didn't remove the I-Mockery link just because that site has a Wikipedia article, but I think it's useless so feel free to remove it if you want. Regarding IMDb, that is one of the few cases where a site that is known as unreliable is accepted in the External Links section. That was decided by the community, as it is the most complete and extensive database about movies. But un-reliablity was not the only reason for the removal: those sites are also fansites, and linking to fansites is forbidden by the external link guidelines. So that was yet another reason to remove those links. And if this was not enough, the guidelines also prohibit the addition of links to websites you own or maintain, as you did to Ghostbusters. I won't add those links back, you can't convince me, and I consider this discussion closed. -- Mushroom (Talk) 10:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC) Message Threads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:151.204.135.144 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mushroom#External_links

I can even poke a few holes into Mushroom's reasoning about fan sites.
(1) If fan sites are so "non-notable", why was one quoted in the history of the Extreme Ghostbusters page as a source: 03:34, 9 October 2006 59.92.47.85 (Removed speculation about the Toy line. http://protoncharging.com/ghostbusters/articles/interview_fil_barlow.html proves that it was simultaneously done during animating the show.)

(2) Wikipedia's external links policy states the following: What should be linked to: 4. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article. Ideally this content should be integrated into the Wikipedia article, then the link would remain as a reference, but in some cases this is not possible for copyright reasons or because the site has a level of detail which is inappropriate for the Wikipedia article.
And in the next section:
Links to be used occasionally: 3. On articles about topics with many fansites, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate, marking the link as such.

The first item describes Spook Central, Proton Charging, Ghostbusters Headquarters, and Ghostbusters.net perfectly. The content on these four sites is neutral, accurate, and too detailed for a Wikipedia article. The second item actually states that linking to a "major fansite" is allowed. Of course, when you have at least four major fansites, how can you choose just one?

To illustrate how much Mushroom vandalized the links sections of all Ghostbusters pages, and to refute his last claim that I added my own site to the page (since Spook Central thoroughly covers the topic of each page, so what if I own it?), check out this nifty table showing various versions of the External Links sections of each page.

	Pre-Existing Links1	My Link Changes1	Mushroom's Link Changes
Ghostbusters	October 5, 2006	October 14, 2006 [08:24]	October 14, 2006 [10:08]
Ghostbusters II	October 8, 2006	October 14, 2006 [08:50]	October 14, 2006 [08:57]
Real Ghostbusters	October 9, 2006	no changes made	October 14, 2006 [10:09]
Extreme Ghostbusters	October 9, 2006	October 14, 2006 [08:53]	October 14, 2006 [08:57]
1. These two versions are not meant to be a direct comparison between each other as there have been several modifications to the pages in between them, including in the External Links section. For example, after the October 5th copy of the Ghostbusters page, some joker removed the link to Spook Central, but kept the rest. The "Pre-Existing Links" version of each page is provided solely to prove that the link to Spook Central existed on the pages at some point in recent history before I made any changes to them.

The ironic part about all of this is that Wikipedia itself is an unreliable source, as proven by a video interview with wrestling personality Eric Bishoff that was posted on WWE.com on September 28, 2006. When stating why he decided to write his book, he said: "When I Google my own name, for example, and that Wikipedia thing comes up, and it starts giving Eric Bishoff's bio. And I read that instead of being born in December of 1950... excuse me, May of 1955, which is when I thought I was born. That's what my driver's license says. According to Wikipedia, I was born in December of 1957. And, when I read that I actually graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in business and a minor in television and broadcasting, I go, 'Geez. I should have done... I should have done better with my life.' Because, although I went to the University of Minnesota, I was there for a cup of coffee. I never graduated from college, PERIOD! So, I decided, there's so much BS floating around out there in the internet community, that it was time to clear the air." Since this interview was published, the information has been corrected on his Wikipedia page (see the Sept. 27, 2006 [23:18] version for the old incorrect information, though no mention of December was ever made like Eric says). Originally the Trivia section of the page made mention of this error (see the Sept. 28, 2006 [23:36] version), but that note has since been removed. Apparently the WikiNazis don't want the public to realize that Wikipedia is fallible. (Of course, this is just one of many examples, past, present, and future, that illustrates that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.)

At this point it would be a waste of time to try to put the links back on Wikipedia. The WikiNazis would just delete them again... if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after. You know, Wikipedia should just delete ALL external links from their site and be done with it. What's the point in having any in the first place if they're going to have an elitist attitude about them?!?

They claim to be neutral, but exclusionary rules goes AGAINST neutrality.

In closing, this is why I have decided that I will never add, delete, or fix ANY data or links on Wikipedia ever again. This isn't the first time that they've deleted links that I've added, but it was the first time that they deleted links that were ALREADY THERE simply because I was fixing them up (which brought it to the Recent Changes list). I regret ever making any changes to those links, because otherwise all of the links might still be there.

I purchased all three volumes of the "Extreme Ghostbusters" home videos and I was quite displeased to find out that the tapes were duplicated in the poor-quality SLP/EP speed. Since this was not stated on the box, I did not know about it before I made the purchase. You see, most pre-recorded videocassettes sold in the stores by major companies (Columbia/Tristar, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, etc.) are duplicated in the high-quality SP speed. It's the low-budget tapes, produced by the no-name companies, that are usually duplicated in the low-quality SLP/EP speed.

So, I sent Columbia/Tristar Home Video a letter to inform them of my displeasure. Since my letter apparently got lost in the mail, I had to call them up (at 310-244-4000) to voice my complaint. I spoke to a woman in the Home Video Customer Service department named Hadas. Although she didn't seem 100% sure of herself, she said that they don't have the masters in SP speed (which I find shocking, to say the least). The rights Columbia/Tristar has for the programs are for EP speed (perhaps this is what they mean by "copy protected" -- though it does nothing to prevent copying). It's possible, she said, that all TV Shows and Kids Shows are recorded in EP speed (though, I find this to be rather pathetic on CTHV's part). Hadas spent a couple of days looking into the matter, particually as to why the EP speed wasn't mentioned on the video packaging, before calling me back with her findings.

Hadas tried several times to speak to the person who does the tapes, but he/she was never available. She called around, but still couldn't find out why it wasn't stated on the package that the tapes were duplicated in EP speed. Nor was she able to find out if CTHV will put a label on the packaging stating that the tapes are dupicated in EP speed. However, she did state that the "Extreme Ghostbusters" videotapes will not be made in SP speed (bummer!). To compensate me for my unhappiness, she offered me a complimentary (free) Columbia/Tristar Home Video title of my choice. After perusing the CTHV website, I called her back and told that that I would like the "Wild Things" DVD (since I already had the two Ghostbusters DVDs). A week and a half later, I received the DVD.

Although, the problem with the "Extreme Ghostbusters" videotapes has not been solved, at least CTHV now knows that their customers don't appreciate how they skimped on quality. This short message helps to spread the word about the tapes. Whether or not you want to buy the tapes, depends on how strongly you feel about Extreme Ghostbusters and this issue.